Interviewing a Teenage OrganizationHow to write the request, and the care owed to minors
6 min read
Coverage of teenage civic participation is increasing. At the same time, we have seen plenty of cases that stall at the entrance to the interview.
Some of the reason is on our side. A student organization may have only a personal social media account as its point of contact, or take days to reply. Even so, it is true that how the request is written changes how easily it gets through.
This article is written from the practice of being interviewed, about how to send a request and run the arrangements.
Who this is for
- Reporters and directors covering teenage civic participation and civic education
- People sending a first interview request to a student organization
- People who want to check how names, photographs and recordings of minors are handled
- People near a deadline who want to move fact-checking along quickly
- People who only need a comment or supporting material
Six items a request needs
It can be short. If it states the following, we can say yes or no the same day.
| Item | Why it is needed |
|---|---|
| The outlet, and the programme or feature name | The context of publication becomes clear |
| The theme | It settles who to put forward |
| The range of what you want to ask | We can judge what can and cannot be prepared |
| Format and length | In person, online or in writing changes who arranges it |
| Preferred dates (several) | It overlaps with schoolwork, so latitude is needed |
| When it will run | Consent from minors takes days to obtain |
Conversely, a request that says only "we would like to hear young people's voices" takes longest to answer, because we cannot decide on your behalf who is to be asked what.
In our case, for interview enquiries please write, in the email subject line, [PRESS] (interview), and send it to contact@teigenjp.org. If you only need material such as photographs or the logo, put 【素材請求】 in the subject line and tell us the outlet, the use and when it will run.
Check the care owed to minors as three separate things
Lumping it together as "they are minors, so care is needed" stops the arrangements. In practice it is three things of different character.
- How far the name is made public — real name / school year and area only / fully anonymous
- How the face appears — face shown / from behind or hands only / not at all
- Secondary use — the main piece only / social media clips / archive streaming
TEIGEN JP publishes information about members who are minors only within the range the member has consented to, and in places anonymises to school year and area alone. Please let us keep to the same range for interviews.
Consent takes days to obtain. Telling us when it will run at the outset lets us select people who can make it.
Hand over questions that are specific about the experience
A common question in interviews with teenagers is "are young people today interested in politics?"
The person answering cannot represent a generation, so all that is left is generalities. The result is a piece that would read the same whoever spoke.
Change only how you ask, and out comes something only that person could say.
- Ask about what the person actually decided, not general opinion
- Ask not only about what worked but about the process of doing it again, not general opinion
- Ask "what did you do at that point?" rather than "what do you think?"
You are welcome to share the main questions in advance. We are sometimes asked whether that makes the answers manufactured, but being able to prepare produces more concrete facts. Where spontaneity is needed, follow-up questions on the day are usually enough.
How we think about designing questions is also set out in Booking a teenage speaker.
Fact-checking can be cleared in advance from public sources
If your deadline is close, there are parts you need not wait on us for.
TEIGEN JP publishes the following.
- FACT SHEET — the figures on our founding, size and record, on a single sheet
- Executive Director's biography — 30-character, 80-character and 200-character versions, and one in English
- Definitions and sources for the figures — what date each figure refers to, and what was counted
When quoting a figure, it helps if you keep the date. As in "38 members (as of June 2026)" — a figure with no date becomes wrong the following year.
Where we supply material, please credit it as "Photo: TEIGEN JP". Our name should be written as "Student Organization TEIGEN JP" or "TEIGEN JP".
These are published in the Newsroom, and definitions and sources for the figures in Results and Recognition.
Points checked when interviewing an organization that handles politics
Because we work on civic education, we are sometimes asked where we stand.
TEIGEN JP, as an organization, neither supports nor opposes any particular party or candidate, and does not steer anyone's vote That policy was agreed by our board and is published. Our classes do not treat real parties, candidates or the pros and cons of live issues.
Because of that policy, we cannot take requests for a comment on the pros and cons of a particular issue during an election period. Comments on the design of institutions or education are possible. Telling us in advance which you are after avoids a wasted exchange.
Themes we can be interviewed on, or comment on
- Civic education and the design of hands-on learning
- Teenage civic participation, youth political participation
- Turnout among 18- and 19-year-olds, and the structure behind it
- Cleanup education, and education in public-mindedness
- How to build an organization run by teenagers
If there is a range we can answer on other themes too, please ask. The themes we can cover are set out in more detail in the Newsroom.
About Us
TEIGEN JP is a student organization founded in June 2023 in Adachi City, Tokyo. Thirty-eight high school and university students (as of June 2026) take part, from Tokyo and the three neighbouring prefectures.
We run the hands-on civic education programme "Mock Ward Mayoral Election", created together with Adachi City Hall, the city assembly, the board of education and the election administration commission, and an outreach class in cleanup education for elementary schools whose curriculum was developed with the cooperation of Duskin Co., Ltd. Together they have reached more than 1,000 people.
For fact-checking and interview requests, please write to contact@teigenjp.org.